While the reported romance between movie star Richard Gere and "Top Chef" host Padma Lakshmi might leave some scratching their heads, we totally get it.

Let's start with the fact that they are both gorgeous and legends in their own fields. Gere has been thrilling fans since 1980 with the release of his first major film "American Gigolo." Lakshmi is well known to foodies for both her cookbooks and her gig hosting Bravo's popular food show since 2006.

And the age difference? Not a big deal for these two. Gere is 64 and Lakshmi is 43, but both have shown a penchant for May-December romances in the past.

Gere made headlines in the 1980s when he began dating supermodel Cindy Crawford, who at 21 was then 17 years his junior. The pair married four years later and divorced in 1995. The "Pretty Woman" actor went on to marry younger actress Carey Lowell in 2002 and the couple, who are parents of a son, announced they had split in 2013.

Meanwhile, Lakshmi has gravitated toward older men. The former model previously dated older billionaire Ted Forstmann, and married novelist Salman Rushdie in 2004. She met the celebrated author, 23 years her senior, at a party in New York City hosted by literary giant Tina Brown. The couple split in 2007, but Lakshmi told Playboy in a 2012 interview that it didn't bother her that people didn't understand her attraction to Rushdie.

"If you saw us together you would know exactly why we were together," she said. "Now there is somebody who has great wit and is a great flirt. I don't regret a day I spent with Salman, but it was tiring. He has a big life, and it only got bigger when we were together. I'm happy to have stood next to him holding his hand, but we were in very different parts of our lives."

And like Gere, Lakshmi is also a single parent. She shares a young daughter with venture capitalist Adam Dell.

The New York Post's Page Six was the first to report that Gere and Lakshmi are in the early stages of a relationship, and since then several publications including People and Us Weekly have confirmed the coupling via unnamed sources.